textproduct: Amarillo

KEY MESSAGES

Issued at 1038 PM CDT Wed Apr 1 2026

-Critical Fire Weather for portions of the western Panhandles on Thursday, and possibly for the southern Panhandles on Friday. Be prepared for any new fires to spread quickly.

-Low chance (~5%) of severe storms in the far eastern Panhandles on Friday.

SHORT TERM

(Today through Friday night) Issued at 1233 AM CDT Thu Apr 2 2026

Surface low centered over the eastern CO western KS area will track east overnight and be replaced with another lee surface low tomorrow afternoon in northeast CO. The overall jet aloft will be displaced further north, but we still may have some breezy winds 20 to 25 mph, and very warm dry air is expected. Highs tomorrow look to be in the 80s. This breezy, warm, and dry combination will still lead to critical Fire Weather concerns for the western Panhandles as the ERC's are still above the 90th percentile. Winds will stay up a bit tonight (Thursday night) and keep the air mixed well, and the overnight lows look to be very mild in the mid 40s to lower 60s.

Thursday evening into Friday, the upper level disturbance that has moved into the CO/WY area will push a cold front across the Panhandles. The timing of this front is highly in question, which leads to uncertainty as to if we will have any Fire Weather concerns in the southern Panhandles. Some higher res models are moving the front through mid-day, while others are stalling the front out to the north and keeping the southern Panhandles warm, dry, and breezy. Also, we expect a dryline setup on Friday, but most guidance suggests it will be very close to the OK/TX border and our impacts will be minimal to none, with maybe just some high based storms producing some wind gust as our main impact. As with the past few systems, there has been a little bit of hope for the southeast Panhandle that it may be ahead of that dryline setup, and could see some storms that would produce decent rain amounts, but also could get severe weather. Cold front certainly looks to push through by Friday night and that will drop the overnight lows in the low 30s for the northwest to mid 40s in the southeast.

Weber

LONG TERM

(Saturday through Wednesday) Issued at 1233 AM CDT Thu Apr 2 2026

With the cold front through the area, we can expect that Saturday will have mild highs in the 60s to near 70 in some areas. Overall, for the remainder of the extended, we do have a ridge of high pressure attempting to rebuild over the Four Corners, but there is still some colder air to the northeast that battles that ridge and gives it more of a negative tilt. For this, highs are expected to be in the 70s Sunday through Tuesday with little to no rain chances, then we might warm up into the 80s on Wednesday as we get some enhancement out of southwest flow. Will note that some mid level moisture may work its way into the western Panhandles on Tuesday and some low chance pops are there to represent some of that moisture in NM that may reach our area. That moisture may be over the entire Panhandles on Wednesday and that low chance of showers will now expand to the entire Panhandles. The pattern isn't too exciting at this point for ample moisture, but still have those slight chance pops in to account for the possibility.

Weber

AVIATION

(06Z TAFS) Issued at 1233 AM CDT Thu Apr 2 2026

VFR conditions will prevail at all TAF sites over the next 24 hours. Winds will be the main story as LLWS out of the west northwest 40-50kts will be prevalent from now through 12-18z. Surface winds will be out of the west 10-20kts with gusts up to 30kts through about 12-15z in which winds will come down closer to 10kts, exception would be KGUY that winds will be more in the 10-15kt range after 9z. Winds will pick back up after 21z out of the southwest 15-20kts gusting 25-30kts. Winds will start to relax again after 03z.

Weber

FIRE WEATHER

Issued at 1038 PM CDT Wed Apr 1 2026

While today ended up with too much cloud cover and we didn't warm up as much as anticipated, the western Panhandles still did get some breezy winds later in the afternoon and RFTI's of 2-4 did occur, for several hours this afternoon. Tomorrow will be a bit of a different story. We do expect that conditions will be much warmer, and drier on Thursday as highs will be in the 80s, and RH values are expected to drop down to about 10-15 percent. The main issue will be that it's going to be solid elevated across most of the area, but from about 1pm to 8pm we do expect that winds will be in the 20-25 mph range in the western Panhandles, and that combined with RH values dropping in the low teens to near single digits will support RFTI's 3-4, maybe isolated 5, but that's enough for critical fire conditions with ERC's over the 90th percentile. Right now the thought is a trimming some of the central Panhandles from the watch as confidence is low that winds will get to 20mph for more than 3 hours, so we'll be looking at the western Panhandles and stair step it up to Texas County Oklahoma.

For Friday, we may be critical again in the south as we have a cold front expected to move through, but that should be later in the day and dry and breezy conditions with highs in the 80s across the south would support critical Fire Weather. Given that we are uncertain where the front will stall out as high res models have the front much further south by mid day and lighter winds ahead of the front, we will hold off on the Fire Weather Watch at this time.

Weber

AMA WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

TX...Red Flag Warning from 1 PM to 10 PM CDT Thursday for TXZ001-002- 006-007-011-016.

OK...Red Flag Warning from 1 PM to 10 PM CDT Thursday for OKZ001-002.

AMA WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

TX...Red Flag Warning from 1 PM this afternoon to 10 PM CDT this evening for TXZ001-002-006-007-011-016.

OK...Red Flag Warning from 1 PM this afternoon to 10 PM CDT this evening for OKZ001-002.